TWD: All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake

I write a lot. Usually I'm writing for school, so it's a bit dry and geared towards a different audience of one, a professor with a brutal and deadly red pen. Or, even worse, a pencil (gasp!). The pencil marks all over a paper pretend to be softer, not as harsh, but by virtue of this pretense of gentle remarks to follow, it's even more brutal. Or, worst of all, the dreaded emailed documents. The word files that go back and forth with markups and bubbles galore. Those can be quite savage. It's funny, when I teach, and grade papers, I use pencil, too. I hate marking up papers with red pen . . . unless I want to make a point. Then the red pen comes out. What does this have to do with the All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake? Absolutely nothing -- except that I usually like to start off these posts with some sort of anecdote. This week, I can't think of anything particularly keen or insightful to say.

Now, don't misunderstand me, this cake is worthy of words, sentences, paragraphs even. It's a delicious bundt cake -- I just happen to be missing any accompanying musing or hijinks to illustrate the bundt. I do have some remarks about the process of making this bundt, though.

Thanks to Nancy, I decided to use fresh cranberries, and I'm so glad I did! The fresh cranberries add a very, very nice tart flavor that the dried cranberries would miss, I think.

I thought I cubed my apple into nice, small pieces, but it turns out (especially in light of my decision to use mini bunt pans) that I didn't. In fact, my apple chunks, cubes, dice were way.too.big. Note to self (and anyone who hasn't made this yet): next time, shred apple.

I made 2 mini bundt and 2 mini loaves with a full recipe. I wish I'd upped the spices, and next time I will. 1 bundt and 1 mini loaf had no nuts (for me!), the other bundt and mini loaf had pecans stirred in (for someone else who isn't me!).


This is a seriously tasty bundt. I happen to LOVE the combination of pumpkin and cranberry in this cake. It's the first time (that I recall anyway) I've tasted this combo, and now I'm obsessed. If you have any great pumpkin cranberry recipes, please send them my way.

Now, Dorie recommends a maple glaze, and I had every intention of using a maple glaze. Here's a question: do you keep your maple syrup in the refrigerator or the pantry? Growing up, our syrup was always in the fridge after it was opened, and so I keep mine in the fridge, too, out of habit. I think that the climate, humidity, pests of Houston may have something to do with my mom's decision to keep it in the fridge, because I know that she would always get it out before she started making pancakes or waffles to let it come up to room temperature. Naturally, when I went to look for the maple syrup, I looked in my refrigerator. It wasn't there. I was sure I had a little left, but, alas, none. So, I made my glaze with milk and powdered sugar. The other day, one of the shelves in my pantry fell, and I had to take everything out to put the pantry back together. There was my maple syrup. Dudley had put it in the pantry. Next time, a maple glaze.

Thanks to Britin, of The Nitty Britty for choosing this great recipe! You can find the recipe on her blog. I had a blast making this cake, and I will defintely make this bundt cake again.